Manhattan

by Steiner, Kandi

  “To the moon?”

  “Something like that. But, you need to pack an overnight bag. And here,” she said, sliding a folded piece of notebook paper toward me. “A packing list.”

  I quirked one brow, reading the top line. “Wear something casual and cool, like if you were going out for a night on the town with your boys.” I laughed. “When have I ever gone out on the town with my boys?”

  “Stop being a nincompoop and get out of here on time so you can pack.”

  “Did you just call me a nincompoop?” I shook my head. “You’ve been hanging out with Betty too much.”

  “Finish up here and pack your bag,” she said, ignoring me as she jumped up, leaning over the counter long enough to plant a kiss on my lips before she was backing her way up out of the shop. “We leave in two hours.”

  “Bye, girlfriend.”

  She shook her head, waving me off, but I didn’t miss the way her cheeks tinged pink.

  Two hours later — after she made me change a few times — we were in her truck, heading northbound out of town with our overnight bags in the back. Kylie had her eyes on the road, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  “You’re wearing makeup.”

  She smiled, her normally-nude lips painted a soft, watermelon pink. “I am.”

  I traced the edges of her face, noting how her lashes were darker and longer, her eyelids dusted with a greenish-gold eyeshadow that got darker at the edges — where she also had eyeliner drawn to a point. That shadow made little flecks of gold in her nutmeg eyes pop in the dusk glow coming through the windshield, and the sun also highlighted the blush on her cheeks, and the shimmer of the gloss on her lips.

  The longer I stared at her, the more she blushed.

  “Mallory helped me with it,” she confessed, glancing at me before her eyes were on the road again. “Is it too much?”

  “Not at all,” I answered quickly and honestly. “You look amazing. I mean, you always do — without any makeup. But, you look…” I paused, wondering what it was. “You’re glowing, I guess. You just look happy. And you still look like you, just… a little different.”

  She smiled.

  “And this outfit,” I continued, letting my eyes devour her from the neck down. She had on tight, black-washed jeans ripped down the thighs to the knees, a simple white tank top that showed the pleasant sweets of her cleavage, and a blue and green flannel tied around her slim waist. The necklace that hung from her neck was a delicate silver chain. It had the phases of the moon linking down her chest, dipping below the hem of her shirt and disappearing somewhere that made me a little jealous of it. “I like this style on you. Did Mallory help with it, too?”

  “Nope, this was actually all me,” she said proudly. Then she placed her left hand on top of the steering wheel, reaching for me with the other. She laced her hand with mine, glancing at me just as we reached the edge of town. “I figured if I had any shot of getting Brandon Flowers’ attention, I needed to glam up a bit.”

  I chuckled, but then her words registered, and I froze. “Wait… did you just say… Brandon Flowers? As in, lead singer for The Killers?”

  Her lips curled into a wicked smile.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, mouth popping open as I stared at her. “Wait. Are you fucking serious? Are we going to see The Killers tonight?”

  “We’re going to see The Killers tonight.”

  “NO FUCKING WAY!” I screamed, staring at her like a wide-mouthed bass before I pulled her hand to my lips, kissing up and down her arm before I moved to her cheek, her neck, her ear.

  She squealed and wiggled away from me, laughing. “You’re going to make me crash!”

  “I can’t fucking believe it!” I sat back, still staring at her in disbelief. “Where?”

  “Nashville.”

  “Nashville!” Excitement was pouring out of me, and I kept shaking my head, still holding her hand in mine. “I can’t believe it. We’re seeing my favorite band in one of my favorite cities.”

  “And, we’re staying the night,” she added. “I found a hotel that lets you book at eighteen. It’s not the Ritz,” she joked. “But, hey — it’s a place to sleep.” Her smile slipped then, and I noted how the chain around her neck ebbed when she swallowed. “It’s just one bed. A king.”

  I smirked, bringing her hand to my lips again and kissing each one of her knuckles. “I get to see my favorite band in concert, and I get to snuggle you all night long?” I shook my head. “What did I do to deserve all this?”

  “It was on our list of adventures,” she said, but I knew it was a lie. I knew this wasn’t just something she’d thrown together. It was something she planned, something to show me she cared.

  My next breath was a little harder, the knot in my chest hard and tangled. Because when I looked at that girl behind the steering wheel, I saw so much more than I ever saw before that summer.

  And I realized, suddenly and acutely, that I didn’t want to know what it was like to live without her.

  I swallowed, my throat sticky and dry as she cranked the volume on the stereo, singing along to a song off The Killers first album. But I just watched, not able to sing with her — not with three little words dancing around in my mind like flashing-neon billboard signs.

  If I said them, everything would change.

  If I said them, then how could I leave?

  But I already knew the consequences didn’t matter.

  Those words were coming.

  It was just a matter of when.

  The elation I felt standing below that stage was both achingly familiar and completely unknown.

  It had been so long since I’d been to a show, I’d almost forgotten the feeling — how the bass thumps deep within you, like a heartbeat, and the music transcends you to another place. I’d almost forgotten how screaming your favorite lyrics at the top of your lungs while surrounded by thousands of other fans doing the same thing was a spiritual experience. It lifted you, filled you from the inside out.

  It was like church, like a holy Sunday morning in the middle of the darkest time of your life.

  Jumping around in the pit with Kylie, I wondered how I’d ever lost the love for it. I wondered how a girl had somehow stolen that joy from me, and how another girl — the one with me tonight — had somehow brought that joy back.

  She’d brought music back into my life.

  No… she was the music in my life.

  It didn’t make sense to me, and I tried not to focus on it, reveling instead in the way it felt to watch Brandon Flowers and Dave Keuning up close and personal. Dave was one of my favorite guitar players, and for half the show, I stood dumbfounded as I watched him shred, and Kylie just laughed.

  “They’re amazing!” I screamed when they finished “Smile Like You Mean It.” The crowd was still going wild, and I wrapped my arms around Kylie, pulling her to stand in front of me as we stared up at Brandon and waited for him to announce the next song. “Thank you,” I said in her ear, kissing the skin below it. “You’re the best girlfriend ever.”

  The stage lights illuminated her smile, and she leaned into me, resting her head on my chest as we watched the stage. It had to be nearing the end of the show — we’d been dancing and singing for nearly two hours now. And the whole crowd felt it, that anticipation of their biggest song, of the one that would end the night and send us all home on a concert high.

  And without another word, the band members looked at each other, shared a knowing smile, and launched into the iconic first notes.

  “Mr. Brightside.”

  Kylie and I both screamed, throwing our hands up in the air with the rest of the crowd. It was deafening once the first verse started, the crowd singing so loud I almost couldn’t hear Brandon’s voice at all. Everyone was jumping and screaming, dancing and laughing, throwing their hands up in the air and worshiping their music god.

  When Dave stepped forward, transforming the usual guitar rift after the second chorus into an epic gui
tar solo, little white lights started popping up all around the venue. Fans lifted their phones, turning the flashlights on and waving them in time with the music. It was like a thousand little stars shining all around us, and I went to fish my own phone out of my pocket, but before I could, Kylie turned, reached up to grab my face in her hands, and pulled my lips to hers.

  The music died.

  I knew it was still there. I knew it wasn’t possible that Dave had stopped playing, that Mark Stoemer had stopped keeping the rhythm with the bass guitar, that Ronnie Vannucci Jr. had ceased to drum or Brandon had stopped singing the iconic lyrics along with the thousands of fans singing with him.

  But to me, right there in that moment, it was silent.

  The lights from the stage and the phones being held up around us swayed, irradiating the lines of Kylie’s face. The glimmer from her eyeshadow was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes and surrendered to the feel of her in my arms, of her lips on mine, of her hair in my hands as I trailed my hands up and cradled her to me. It was like we were spinning, like the gravity that held us to the ground was fading, weakening, threatening to break at any moment and let us float up to space.

  I’d kissed other girls before. Hell, I’d kissed Bailey probably a million times in the two years we’d been together. But nothing, nothing compared to the way I felt when I kissed Kylie.

  There was something about the way her lips moved with mine, tender and timid, so unsure and yet so perfectly natural. It was the way she fit in my arms, the way her chin tilted up and mine tilted down, the way that when we closed our eyes, we still somehow saw each other — as if we traveled to another place together. It was the way we had history, the way I knew the girl I was kissing knew more about who I was than maybe even I did.

  In the sea of screaming fans, singing and dancing and jumping around, we were still. We were silent.

  We were in a another universe, another time.

  Kylie pulled back after an hour, or maybe only a minute — time was inconsequential. She pressed her forehead to mine, and when my eyelids fluttered open, I found her staring back at me.

  “I love you.”

  I saw her lips move, saw the words outlined by that watermelon lip gloss, though everything still felt silent somehow. I’d heard her, and yet nothing had been said at all.

  Gently, the music made its way back, the final rifts of the song floating into our private space there in the pit like someone was slowly turning the volume back up. Kylie pulled back, her eyes searching mine as her hands tangled in the hair at the back of my neck.

  “I love you, Michael,” she said again as the music crescendoed. “And if you love me, too — then I want you to show me. I want you to make love to me.” She swallowed, eyes falling to my lips before they found my gaze once more. “Tonight.”

  Then, the song ended, the lights went out, and the crowd screamed for more.

  Kylie

  I noticed more than I should have about that tiny little hotel room off interstate sixty-five, like that the walls were painted a soft, sea-foam green that seemed to cast a glow over everything inside. I noted that there were only two pieces of artwork — both of them indistinguishable as much more than some broad brush strokes over a canvas, and yet somehow, I saw entire lives in those abstract paintings. And I couldn’t help but catalogue how cool it was, like someone had cranked the air on in the heat of the afternoon and forgotten about it.

  There was one bed — a king, covered in a textured white comforter with a gold runner at the feet. There was also a desk and an office chair, two bedside tables — one with a phone, one with a guide to Nashville, and a small dresser with a modest-sized television on top of it. The bathroom was small but clean, with a shower and a sign hanging from the door knob that encouraged guests to reuse their towels and be green.

  It was all I could do as I sat there on the edge of the bed. All I could think about was what that room looked and felt and smelled like, because if I didn’t focus on what I could sense, I’d be taken under by the wave of what I was feeling.

  I avoided it for as long as I could, holding Michael’s hand in the truck on the way back as we jammed to music, pretending like nothing was going to happen once we got to this room. We laughed and joked with the front desk attendant when we checked in, and we were still talking about the concert as we grabbed our bags out of the truck and made our way to our room — number two-oh-six, on the second floor in the back near the pool.

  I focused on everything I could in that room so I could not focus on the way my hands were clammy, the way my breaths were too shallow, too weak, and the way my heart was beating just a pace too quickly, like it wasn’t sure if it needed to be prepping me to fight or fly or if we were about to lie down to rest.

  But as soon as Mikey connected his phone to the Bluetooth speaker in the room and Billie Holiday began to play, I couldn’t hide anymore. I couldn’t avoid or pretend or escape.

  This was real. It was happening.

  I was about to lose my virginity to the one man I’d always hoped I would.

  Mikey sat his phone down, watching me from where he stood next to the desk, and my fingers curled into the comforter on the bed, as if it would somehow hold me steady through all this.

  Excitement and anticipation swirled with fear and anxiety like the fiercest tornado inside me. I wanted to jump up and run to him, throw myself into him, kiss him hard and give myself to him fully. But, I couldn’t move against the other half of the storm, the one that whispered doubts into my mind.

  What if you’re terrible?

  What if it hurts?

  What if he doesn’t want to?

  What if it’s awkward?

  What if he breaks up with you because there’s no chemistry?

  What if he thinks about Bailey?

  My hormones battled with those thoughts, the pulsing between my legs already strong and heavy as Mikey watched me with his hands in his pockets, his jaw set, his eyes trailing over every inch of me slowly and purposefully. Until tonight, I’d been the only one to ever touch me. I’d been the only one to ever push a finger inside me, to ever play and explore and discover.

  Now, I was about to let another person do the same.

  Mikey took a few steps toward me, and when he did, a long, shaky breath left me unwillingly. My hands were still curled into the comforter under my thighs, and I gripped tighter, watching him until he was standing right above me.

  I hadn’t even noticed he had the condom in his hand until he set it on the bedside table, the blue packet all I could look at until he held his hands out, waiting.

  I swallowed, placing my hands in his and tearing my eyes from the packet to look up at him, instead. He gently pulled me to stand, holding me steady at the elbows once I was on my feet. His fingertips slipped over the skin of my upper arms, hands gliding to cradle my neck, and when my eyes met his, he smiled.

  “It’s just me,” he whispered, eyes flicking back and forth between mine. “It’s just us. It’s okay, you can breathe.”

  I blew out a breath on cue, smiling and shaking my head before I buried it in his chest. “God, I’m sorry. You can tell how nervous I am, can’t you?”

  He chuckled, pressing a kiss against the crown of my head. “A little.”

  He held me for a long while, fingers playing with my hair as I attempted to school my breathing.

  “We don’t have to… you know, we don’t…”

  “No,” I said definitively, pulling back to look him in the eyes again. “I want to.”

  Mikey frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “More sure than I’ve been about anything in my life.”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up, and he brushed my hair back, watching his hand as he did before those forest eyes locked on mine. “Before we go any farther, there’s something I need you to know.”

  I didn’t say a word, just waited, watching him as he watched me.

  “I love you, too, Kylie,” he breathed, a smile flashi
ng over his lips before it was gone again, and he swallowed. “I always have, ever since we were kids. But, now… I am in love with you. I am, without a doubt, head over heels, can’t get enough, want you every day, need you every night, stupidly and disgustingly in love with you.”

  A small laugh bubbled out of me, but my eyes were glossy, blurring his face as he smoothed his thumb over my jaw.

  “And I’m in love with you,” I whispered.

  He nodded, lowering his forehead to mine, and then, he tilted my chin up with his fingertips, and we sealed our declaration with a soft, slow kiss.

  There was something in that kiss that wasn’t in any of the ones we’d shared before. It was a promise. It was arms outstretched to catch me as I free fell out of the clouds. It was comfort and warmth, and assurance, and more than anything, it was everything I needed to know I could trust him with my first time.

  Slowly, hesitantly, the kiss deepened, Mikey rolling his tongue against mine as his hands slipped down to grip my waist. My breaths came quicker, shallow and hot, and every part of my body began to awaken under his touch.

  “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to kiss you like this,” I breathed against his lips. “To touch you like this.”

  “Am I living up to the hype?” he asked, kissing down my neck, his scruff tickling the tender skin as my head fell back.

  I closed my eyes, mouth slack as I reveled in the feel of his teeth grazing my collarbone. “Surpassing,” I managed on a breath.

  Mikey smiled, kissing back up my neck until his lips were on mine again.

  Then, he undressed me.

  The soft, romantic crooning of Billie Holiday’s voice and the heavy breaths leaving my lips were all I could focus on as Mikey’s hands dropped to the flannel tied around my waist. He kept his lips fastened to mine as he untied the arms, letting the fabric fall to the floor. His hands slid up and under my tank top next, the warmth of his palms eliciting a wave of chills over my navel as he guided the fabric up, up, over my rib cage, my bra, until I had no choice but to lift my arms and let him tug the shirt over my head.